


More Like Black Treacle Than Tar

by bloodscout



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Attempted Sucide, Depression, Derek POV, M/M, Overuse of italics, Prompt Fic, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-24
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 23:47:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bloodscout/pseuds/bloodscout
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things… The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things, and make them unimportant. And we definitely added to his pile of good things.<br/>			-The Doctor</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Like Black Treacle Than Tar

**Author's Note:**

> Possibly a series? Obvious triggers for suicide and depression. And overuse of italics.

It is like trying to swim in tar. He has to push through it each day, has to try to reach the surface, but he can’t. It drags on his limbs and it fills his nose and mouth until it is all he can taste. He hates it, he hates the tar, but it is warm and shielding and it’s easier to be dragged back down than to fight against it.

Sometimes someone will reach out to him, give him their hand, but he never takes it because he doesn’t want to drag them in, too.

 

It is a Monday when Derek first spends the whole day in bed.

He stays in bed on Tuesday too.

And Wednesday.

And Thursday.

Derek stays in bed until Saturday, when Stiles climbs through his window to curl up with him. Derek likes having Stiles around, but he wants to be alone so he leaves the human asleep in the body-warm sheets. He feels bad for leaving Stiles alone, and that is just another layer on the tar. He is sucked deeper down.

Derek walks. He keeps walking, and his legs are burning. He thinks the pain is good for him. He registers that it is dark, and he thinks he has circuited the woods twice, but he doesn’t know for sure. It is almost dawn when he collapses, his legs no longer able to hold him.

Derek Hale claws at the dirt until his fingers bleed and he screams.

 

Stiles finds him sitting by the side of the road, covered in dirt and blood and salty tears. Stiles falls to his knees and clutches Derek to his chest. He is crying too, but not like Derek cried. Stiles is crying like he lost something. Derek cried like that once, too.

Stiles is saying something, but Derek doesn’t hear him. The tar has filled his ears and it drips down his face.

Stiles holds back tears for the entire drive home, and that is when Derek makes his decision. He can’t let anyone hurt because of him. Not anymore.

 

Derek takes his time. There is no sense in rushing this. He gets what he needs, and he sits it by his bed. He sees the needles every morning when he wakes up, and every nigh before he goes to bed. To him, they are perfect. They are an escape.

 

When he wakes up drenched in sweat and crying out for his mother, his father, his sisters, brothers, cousins, _anyone_ , he knows he has waited long enough.

He runs a bath. He does not know why, it seems like the right thing to do. He does not bring a change of clothes. He doesn’t bring a towel. He takes the syringes with him, clutches them in his fist, but that is all. Derek knows very well that once he get sin this bath, he will not get out. It is a strange kind of release.

He scrubs at his arms until they are scratched and raw, and tiny pinpricks of blood start to dot his skin. Then, he waits. He does not know what he is waiting for, but he waits for it. When that water starts to get cold, he takes one of the needles and slides it into the blue vein that pops up at him from his arm. It reminds him of the way his mother used to sew up the holes in his clothes, and he tries not to think about her. It is all about to end – _he_ is about to end – but that doesn’t mean the memories no longer hurt.

He can feel the wolfsbane moving through his bloodstream, can feel his heart pushing it to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his toes.

But instead of feeling peaceful, feeling the tar thin around him, Derek is scared. He does not want to die, and he is very, _very_ scared.

He does the only thing he can do. He howls.

Derek howls for his old pack, he howls for his new pack and he howls for his mate.

He howls for Stiles, but no-one answers.

He is slipping, and he is terrified of it. He tries to grasp on to something, thrashes in the water, but he continues to fall.

He hears a crash, and the noise reverberates in his head a thousand times over, echoing inside his skull. He is petrified.

He can barely feel the hands when the fall on him, is only slightly aware of the body the he is pressed against as he is hauled out of the bathtub. He can hear his name, over and over and over, like a song, like a prayer. He hears the most beautiful voice he has ever heard telling him to hold on, but he can’t. He tries and he’s terrified and he’s _sorry Stiles I’m so sorry I’m sorry_.

The last thing he is aware of are tears on his face, and then he is gone.

 

It is illogical for him to wake up, but he does.

Derek Hale, despite everything he expected, wakes up.

 

Stiles is curled up in bed with him, face to face, eyes open. Today is a Bad Day, but he can deal with it. Today is a Bad Day, but Stiles is here to help him through it. Yesterday was a Bad Day as well, and they walked. Derek carried Stiles home, and it was a bit better. Today is better than last month, and last month was better than the month before that, and that month was better than the time he was in hospital, and everything is better than the day when Stiles found him and the needles.

Derek is not a child. He knows it will not go away immediately. He knows that this _depression_ , this thick and foreign word in his mouth will take time. It may never go away, not entirely. Some days, he still gets stuck, still feels like the tar is suffocating him, but he just holds Stiles’ hand and listen to the boy whisper ‘You wait until we get some WD-40 on that tar. Just you wait.’

 

Stiles threw the needles in the trash, and Derek is happy to let them stay there.


End file.
